Fifth Victim (35 page)

Parker’s face was grave. ‘Let’s just hope they’re not planning on a repeat performance.’

I reached the parking area Orlando had specified exactly seven minutes later and found it deserted. There was a single multidirectional lamppost in the centre, but only half the bulbs appeared to be working, casting lopsided shadows across the space. The rain was still gusting through the beams, clouds scudding past a high moon.

As I swung the Navigator round in a slow circle, the headlights played across wind-blown sandy asphalt and not a lot else.

I parked up in the centre, on the darker side of the lamppost, facing the entrance. There, it would be difficult for anyone to advance from the scrub without being seen. I cracked the window, and cut the engine and the lights.

The smells and sounds of the ocean drifted in through the slot above the glass. In the dark, the rush of breakers on the beach took on a monumental quality, even above the drum of rain on the SUV’s roof. I was suddenly very aware of my own insignificance in the great scheme of things.

I touched a finger to my lips, as if I could still feel the imprint of Parker’s mouth on mine. What had happened between us still felt a little unreal, so that I was almost afraid to mention it to him, just in case it really had all been a dream. But then I remembered his smile, when I’d walked back into the living area.

No, it hadn’t been a dream.

But what the hell did I – did
we
– do about it?

The attraction to Parker had taken me by surprise. He’d been brilliant since the shooting, compassionate, a real friend. But I’d never had eyes for anyone other than Sean and I felt loathsomely unfaithful, regardless of the circumstances leading up to that kiss.

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. Combat stress could heighten emotions of all kinds, and maybe that was part of the reason for my confusion – little more than a dramatic release of tension. I told myself there would be a time to sort out my feelings. But later – much later.

‘
How long are you going to wait for Sean?
’ whispered an insistent little demon on my shoulder. ‘
And how long do you think Parker will wait for you?
’

It was a relief to see a set of headlights turn off the main road at that moment. I squinted in the glare as the lights panned across the Navigator’s windscreen. They bounced a little as the vehicle behind them negotiated the rough shoulder leading to the car park.

It pulled alongside me, nose to tail, and I recognised the outline of a 7 series BMW. Probably the same one that had brought Orlando and Manda to visit Dina, the day after Torquil had been kidnapped.

A lot seemed to have happened since then.

The driver’s door opened and a man got out. A big guy, built like a rugby player. As he turned, I caught him in profile and saw the broken nose that triggered my memory. So, she’d brought the same personal bodyguard with her as well.

I opened the Navigator’s door and stepped down, keeping my arms relaxed. The rain instantly drenched my bare head and found its way straight down the back of my jacket collar, but the air was surprisingly warm.

The bodyguard muscled in and flicked his fingers towards my hands, indicating I should spread for a search. I stood my ground and stared right back.

‘Either she wants to talk to me or she doesn’t,’ I said tiredly. ‘But you lay a finger on me and I will rip off both your arms and beat you to death with the wet ends. Your choice.’

He hesitated, his expression mulish. I shrugged and reached for the Navigator’s door handle, like I really didn’t care. It was a calculated risk.

‘Wait!’

I stopped. The Bee-Em’s darkened rear glass had dropped a few inches and Orlando’s face appeared, paler than ever in the mix of sodium and moonlight, blinking as the rain splashed inside.

‘Charlie, please,’ she said, sounding genuinely distraught. ‘Vincent, it’s OK. Please, just let her get in the car.’

The bodyguard, Vincent, didn’t like it. I wouldn’t have done, in his place, but he opened the rear door and jerked his head to signify I should get in. I took my time about it, taking a perverse satisfaction from the fact he was getting just as wet as I was.

Eventually, I shrugged and climbed in. Orlando slid over to the far side of the rear bench seat to give me room, and the bodyguard slammed the door after me with a certain amount of venom. He got back into the front, twisting round in his seat so he could keep an eye on me.

I don’t know where Orlando had been hiding out, but she looked terrible, which for her probably meant she hadn’t been near a hairdresser or a nail salon for the best part of a week.

‘Is it true about Dina being taken?’ she demanded by way of greeting.

I raised a dripping eyebrow. ‘How do you know anything’s happened to Dina?’

As far as I was aware, it wasn’t public that she had been kidnapped. Certainly we’d done our best to keep the information away from the authorities, at Caroline Willner’s insistence. The only investigating they were doing related to Torquil Eisenberg’s death.

Orlando’s eyes slid towards Vincent and I nodded in understanding. The ex-military grapevine was better than any twenty-four-hour news channel. I glanced back at the girl on the back seat.

‘It’s true that your boys sliced off her ear, yes.’

Her hands flew to her face, fingers rigid. ‘Oh, God,’ she choked. ‘They’re not “my boys”. How can you say that? You think I’d do something like that to one of my friends?’

I sat back into the corner, making it harder for Vincent to watch me. ‘Why not?’ I said mildly. ‘Torquil was supposedly one of your friends, wasn’t he? And you had him beaten to death.’

‘No! That wasn’t … I didn’t—’

‘Didn’t what, Orlando?’ I let my voice harden. ‘Didn’t authorise that? So who did? The same person who told you to feed me that crap about Torquil stalking you before your kidnap?’

‘Nobody told me to
do
anything! Nobody “authorised” anything!’ She let her hands fall back into her lap, her head drop, looked about to weep. ‘They must have done it themselves.’

‘According to your friend, Manda, Lennon couldn’t plan his way out of a wet paper bag. So, who’s he working with?’

‘I don’t know,’ she muttered.

‘Well, think harder,’ I said. ‘You created this monster. You’re going to have to help me deal with it.’

Her head shot up again. ‘But … that will mean everyone will know … about us. What we did.’

‘Yes,’ I said, not in the mood to let her down gently. That the prospect of exposure and disgrace seemed to horrify her more than murder, did little to arouse my sympathy. ‘How did you approach Lennon – who is he?’

She shrugged. ‘Just some guy I knew from college,’ she said. ‘We did drama classes together. He wanted to be an actor. And then I saw him again, at some party last spring. We got chatting. I asked him how he was doing, and he said the only decent piece of work he’d gotten was playing one of the bad guys in some TV cop show pilot that never took off. And the idea just … came to me.’

‘To have yourself kidnapped.’ I tried to stay neutral, but it came out flat instead. I sighed. ‘Why, Orlando? What possessed you to get yourself into this mess in the first place?’

That brought a little fire into her eyes, a little colour into her cheeks. ‘You have absolutely no clue what it’s like,’ she said, voice low. ‘You think it’s so fine, having money, horses, cars, clothes, but it’s like being in gaol.’

‘I can think of a few prisoners who’d disagree with you.’

She made a gesture of impatience, as if she hadn’t expected someone like me to be able to comprehend something on the scale of her life. ‘You saw my father, right? My mother’s in Europe someplace, touring art galleries, or museums, or something like that. I don’t think he even knows which country she’s in. If they pay that much attention to each other, how much do you think they ever paid to me?’

CHAPTER FIFTY

‘All my life, someone else has decided things for me,’ Orlando said, in a voice bitter-edged with sullen. ‘My father wanted a boy – had this name all picked out. When I turned out to be a girl, they couldn’t be bothered to think of another.’ She paused, pleating the belt of her coat with nervous fingers. ‘I just wanted some control over my own destiny for a change.’

I stared at her. ‘And how exactly do you achieve that by putting yourself completely at the mercy of a stranger?’

‘You just don’t get it,’ she snapped. ‘I
was
in control, deep down. I knew I was safe. Even when I was locked up, tied up, I knew they wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want them to.’

‘You put a hell of a lot of trust in someone you knew slightly from college.’

Her turn to stare. ‘But I was paying him,’ she said blankly, like that was enough to ensure anyone’s loyalty.

‘How much?’

She shrugged, as if it were vulgar to discuss it. ‘Fifty grand,’ she said at last. She might as well have said fifty bucks, for all it meant to her. ‘I don’t know how much of that he gave to the other guy, Ross.’

I wondered if she had any concept of what that amount of money would mean to the average college kid, or what they’d be prepared to do in order to get it.

‘How did you get in touch with Lennon if he’s always changing his cellphone number?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, when he played a part, he really played it,’ she said frowning. ‘If the one I had for him was dead, I had to go sit in a coffee shop down near the boardwalk on Coney Island, around ten in the morning.’ She gave me the name of the place and I filed it away.

‘And … what? He met you there?’

‘No, but he must have been able to see me or something, because he’d take that as a signal to call my cell, and then I’d have his new number.’

Lennon must work or live nearby, or have a trusted contact at the coffee shop itself. It wasn’t much, but it was a lead.

‘You know I’m going to have to pass this on to the FBI, don’t you?’ I asked, and saw something like relief flicker through her face. ‘Was that why you called me, Orlando – to do your dirty work for you, so you can keep your distance?’

‘No!’ The denial came too quick, too easily. Her eyes filled, but I wasn’t completely convinced she couldn’t do that at will. She had, after all, taken acting classes with Lennon. ‘Everything’s gone so wrong! Supposing they come after me again – I mean, for real this time? I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘Well, going to the cops as soon as Torquil turned up dead would have been a bloody good start,’ I muttered, and watched her head hang.

‘It was supposed to be a game,’ she repeated stubbornly.

I sighed. How did you deal with someone who was so far removed from everyday real life, it was like they were from another planet? ‘So, did it live up to your expectations – being kidnapped?’

Another shrug. ‘I guess,’ she said, but I’d caught the quick smile, the satisfaction that came and went in her face, quickly masked. Maybe it had given her the control she craved. Or maybe it had simply got the attention of her parents – both of them – for the first time in her life. I wanted to shake her.

‘So then Manda wanted out from under the family thumb, too, and you offered to do another deal with Lennon?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

I glanced at the bodyguard, Vincent, sitting motionless in the front of the car. His slightly crooked face was professionally impassive, but there was something disdainful in his eyes.

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ I said to him. ‘How could you not?’

‘Of course,’ he said, almost a sneer. ‘You think a couple of punks like that could get away with snatching my principal from right under my nose otherwise? How incompetent d’you think we are?’

‘So, it stands to reason, in that case,’ I added with slow realisation, ‘that her parents knew, also?’

I heard a disbelieving gasp from Orlando, but kept my eyes on Vincent. His gaze flickered across to her, then back to meet mine. ‘Yeah, course I told ’em,’ he said. ‘Why d’you think no cops?’

‘But …?’ Orlando’s voice trailed off into misery. ‘They paid,’ she whispered. ‘Why did they pay the ransom, if they knew …?’

‘Maybe they were indulging your little fantasy,’ I suggested. After all, in a twisted way it was only like going to a dude ranch and pretending to be a cowboy for the weekend.
And what’s half a million dollars if there’s plenty more where that came from?
I waited for her to absorb that one, then turned back to Vincent. ‘What about the others? Did they know, too?’

‘Dempseys, yeah. We let their security know – professional courtesy, y’know? I think they were kinda relieved that kid was going after herself instead of her old man for a change. Benellis were told, and I think maybe they decided enough was enough and refused to go along with it. But after the kid lost a finger, well, I guess they convinced themselves it was for real after all.’

I remembered the screeching of Benedict’s mother, the quiet seething of his father, and realised there had been more to it than simple surprise. Neither of them liked being taken for fools, but they’d been prepared to ignore it, until that wasn’t possible any longer. So, part of their anger was directed at themselves.

I shook my head, looked at Orlando’s dejected figure slumped in the corner of the luxurious leather upholstery. Above us, the rain hammered on the roof and bounced up into an ankle-deep layer of mist across the ground outside.

I glanced at Vincent’s indifferent face. ‘You didn’t feel it was worth extending the same
professional courtesy
to me, then, when I started looking after Dina?’

The bodyguard shrugged. ‘It was on a need-to-know basis, and Mrs Willner isn’t in the same league as the others,’ he said, dismissive. ‘The threat wasn’t taken seriously.’

And neither were you
. He didn’t need to say it, I saw it in his eyes, his face, and wondered if I was going to be butting my head against this same misogynist attitude for the rest of my career.

‘Yeah, and look how well that turned out,’ I said, turning back to Orlando without waiting for his response. ‘First thing tomorrow morning,’ I told her, ‘you’re going to go back to that bloody coffee shop, and you’re going to sit there until Lennon calls you.’